Love At First Type ~ COMPLETED

The bright lights that illuminate the hospital waiting room blind Darren the minute she steps through the automated doors. She wants to turn around, but she already watched Blithe’s car take off at a rather fast speed; Blithe’s way of saying, “You can’t turn around, bitch, so take what he has to say because it may be the last thing he’ll ever say.”

Blithe wasn’t especially happy to hear that Darren needed a ride to the hospital at 11PM, but once she heard the reason, she wasn’t going to let Darren stay at home. Darren’s blonde bestie knows about and recognizes the disagreements between her and her father. After all, those disputes were the beginning of what led to their close friendship in Miss Merriweather’s Boarding School for Girls.

In fact, the disagreements between Darren and her father are the initial reason to Darren’s enlistment in the boarding school that is just on the outskirts of London, far from home, but not too far. There, she met Blithe, with all sorts of complications, but that is a story for another time.

Putting aside all of her thoughts, and no longer knowing of a way to get out of this situation, Darren steps up to the front desk. A lanky brunette with distasteful bright, red lips and horrifyingly vibrant, pink eye shadow glances up at her, and Darren mentally judges how exactly this slut got her job. ‘She probably slept with her employer,’ Darren guesses.

“Can I help you?” the receptionist recites in the normal too-happy-to-be-working-in-the-place-of-many-deaths tone that most hospital workers carry.

Darren clears her throat. “Um, yes. I’m looking for Andy Harries?”

“And you are?”

“His, um… daughter.”

The receptionist nods and begins to type words onto the computer screen in front of her. When she finds the information, she looks back up at Darren. “He’s in room 117. Go down this hall and make a left; it will be the third door on the right.”

Darren nods and follows her directions, taking her time to prolong the minutes until she has to face her so-called father. Before she is aware, she is standing in front of the door to room 117. Without even knocking, the door opens, and Darren is pulled inside of the small hospital room, the door shutting behind her.

The sight is saddening, but Darren’s unemotional persona of the moment is not faltered. Her siblings, other than Jack who pulled her into the room, take up chairs by the window, looking down at the floor and playing with their fingers. At another chair at the side of the hospital bed in the middle of the room sits her mother, sobbing into the sheets of the hospital bed and holding on dearly to the hand of the man who resides there. Darren’s… “father”.

Jack clears his throat, calling to the attention of all family members. All eyes are on Darren, now, and she shuffles her feet uncomfortably, avoiding eye contact but not looking at the ground to make it less obvious.

“Darren,” Mr. Harries acknowledges her before coughing roughly into his inner elbow. Darren just nods at him, not wanting to say anything. She is oblivious as he dismisses the rest of her siblings and mother from the room, leaving the two of them alone.

Her mother breaks her out of this oblivion, holding onto Darren’s shoulders and giving her a meaningful glance before being the last one to exit. Darren glances around the room, suddenly remembering her hatred for hospitals and other medical facilities. Her eyes stop on the patient, and he pats the seat beside his bed where her mother sat just a minute ago.

After much doubt of any progress in this hopeless father-daughter relationship, she takes the seat. She only sits on the edge of the seat, stuffing each of her hands under her thighs and folding her lips into a thin line. Her father, however, takes one of her hands and places it in his, wrapping his other hand over it.

“I’m so glad you came,” he says. He sounds like he’s about to cry just because of the actuality of her being there. Again, Darren just nods her head, staring at their joint hands. She wants to pull away, but something tells her not to, that she’ll only ever be this close to her “dad” for one last time.

“I don’t mean to be rude, but why did you want me to be here? You’re dying, and you want to talk to me of all people. You hate me.” Darren is blunt, still not expressing any emotion and not regretting a single word that leaves her mouth.

He coughs once to clear his throat, and then coughs several more times as a result. “I don’t hate you, Darren; I could never hate you.” Darren refrains herself from rolling her eyes. “I just wanted to clear things with someone whom I regret letting leave my life. I don’t want what happened that day to be the last conversation we ever had and-”

Darren rips her hand from his and looks him straight in the eyes. “So this is all because you wanted to make peace before you leave? Or at least that’s what this really is, isn’t it?”

“No, that’s not what-”

Darren lets water build up in her eyes, because of all the things she feels right now, she feels used. Her “dad” is just using her to have better peace when he leaves; he isn’t really sorry for what he did, and the more she lets this sink in, the more it is set in stone. She lets her tears fall.

“You should be spending these last few minutes with mom, not some girl, who may or may not even be your daughter,” Darren spits.

He reaches out to wipe fallen tears, but Darren pulls away from him, standing up and propping herself up against the nearest wall. “You are my daughter, no matter what. I was wrong for saying what I said and doing what I did. You were always my daughter, even if not by blood.”

As more words are said, Darren can’t help but be hypocritical. Over the years, she’s done everything possible to make sure she’d never have to see him again. She has had a nonstop hatred for him because of his actions in the past, and she didn’t want to see him. Now, she doesn’t want to see him go, because, despite everything that happened between them, Darren wishes she had had more time with the man who once called her dad.

Darren closes her eyes to squeeze out the tears, wiping them away with her hands. She moves back toward to her father, leaving a few inches between her and the hospital bed, but she takes the hand she rejected before. “Why are you dying? Why now?”

“I’m old, Dare.” He takes his hand from hers to cough into his elbow as Darren continues to speak.

“You’re 63, not a dinosaur.” Darren laughs belittle at her own word choice, taking her eyes off of her dad just as his hand drops with a thud. She instantly looks back up with panic. “Dad?” She shakes his shoulder, and his eyes flutter open a little bit.

“I love you, Sunshine,” he croaks.

“Daddy!” Darren cries, panicked. After that, all she knows is that his eyes close, the heart monitor goes flat, and all she wants to scream but can’t. And she slips into dark numbness.

~

The Mock London Gazette: Obituaries for January

Andrew D. M. Harries
April 7, 1954 – January 28, 2018

We remember the life of Andrew D. M. Harries who passed recently on Sunday, January 28, 2018. He was a loving husband, friend, and father who enjoyed spending time with his wife, Rebecca Frayn, and their five children, Finn, Jack, Darren, Emmy, and Rhys…

News about the British television and film producer’s death had spread quickly through the medias. Close friends, distant family members, and even fans of the twin YouTubers sent sympathy toward the family.

Harry first hears of the incident the morning that follows it – Monday – at his meeting for tour. The news is spreading through Twitter amongst YouTube fans and fans of the producer himself like wildfire, and it was only a matter of time before the news reached the stars. His initial reaction was of shock, knowing that this man is Darren’s father, but after he remembered Darren’s not-so-great remarks about her parents, he didn’t know if he should console her or just ignore it.

For the rest of the meeting, he decides to ignore it by putting his phone away and actually paying attention for once. Even so, he doesn’t find any of the discussion useful to him or entertaining at all because he nearly fell asleep. If it hadn’t been for his previous results from falling asleep during a meeting, Harry would have gone out like a light, but he didn’t want to risk his precious hair again.

After the discussion is over, there is nothing else scheduled for the boys for the day, so they all leave to their respective homes. Harry, however, doesn’t take off right away. Instead, he sits in his car and sends a new message to Darren, hoping he won’t upset her in any way with her dad’s death and his virtual presence.

To Daaarrrreenn:
hi

~

Darren sits on her window seat, one leg pulled up with an arm slung over it. Her head rests solemnly against the part of the wall where the window meets the plaster, looking out with wishful eyes looming over the park.

The day is disgustingly brighter than she had hoped for, with the sun choosing to shine in small section of the sky where the clouds part just barely. Today would have been a great day to go out and do something, but the mood killed it so much that all Darren has been doing this day is sitting here adorned in the blackest clothes she could possibly own.

Everything else in her room has gone untouched. Her phone is turned completely off, her way of avoiding sympathy and unwelcome kindness from people who possess her number. Even her brothers are allowing Darren to wallow in her guilt and anguish. No one will bother her, and that’s how she wants it to stay for now.

After yesterday’s fate at the hospital, Darren didn’t know what to think, especially after the true reasoning of his being there was told. Brain dead. First, a sudden seizure mid evening, and then he went unconscious for a few hours. The major part of his brain where reactions happen had internal bleeding. With surgery, there would be a one in five chance of survival, but sometimes life isn’t worth that 20% risk. The coughing was due to him gasping for air after he forgets to breathe.

By the time Darren had arrived, the family was in their time of enjoying the last few moments he had in this life with him. She took the last few minutes. She was the last to see him.

A part of Darren wonders if everything he said was true, or if him being near brain dead caused him to lose his mind and say things he didn’t mean. Was what he said about her always being his daughter true, or was he just saying that because his mind was already dead but he somehow managed to stay conscious for a little while longer.

The front door of the house opens and closes loudly, followed by car doors and an engine roaring to life before both Jack and Finn pull out of the driveway and off to wherever. Darren just closes her eyes and tries to think of happier thoughts. Only, she can’t because painted into that dark abyss in her mind is a cold and lifeless body, eyes shut, and hand hanging coldly off the side of the boring, white hospital bed.

She doesn’t open her eyes, though. Instead she forces herself to keep them shut to remind her that she was the last person to ever see him while he was still alive. All she really knows about yesterday, is that that person shouldn’t have been her.

Darren finds herself falling asleep, and as much as she doesn’t want to let the fatigue overwhelm her, she knows she can’t fight it with how little energy she has. So she lets sleep take her, and the picture in her mind is forgotten for the time being, leaving her mind an abyss.

tap… tap, tap.

Darren scrunches her forehead at the sound of soft taps against the glass near her head.

tap.

She slowly blinks her eyes open but makes no movement otherwise. Her eyes catch glimpse of a raindrop hitting her window, making that brief tap noise from before. Her gaze follows the small drop downward until it hits the end of her windowsill. Darren traces her fingers along the drops of rain as the small storm picks up speed. The feeling of the cold glass brings the hairs on her arms to a stand.

Without thinking she opens the catch on the window and pushes the glass pane open. She sticks her hand out letting the sleeve the covers it soak up in the sky’s teardrops. For all of her life, Darren loved the rain. She loved the smell of it, the sight of it, and the feel of it. At least until now, that is, because the rain brought the gloomy day she was expecting to life and sometimes what you want isn’t what you really want.

Notes